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Forum:Why is Gil worried about being infected by a wasp?
On Castle Wulfenbach, as Gil and Agatha race toward the Wasp Engine to try to disable it, Gil tells Agatha that if the wasps infect them, they'll be enslaved. But Gil knows that he and Agatha are both Sparks, and it would certainly seem that the Baron knows that slaver wasps don't normally infect Sparks, as do Tarvek and Vrin. (I'll leave out for the moment that the Baron gets infected in the "Dragon from Mars" story, as that's not necessarily canonical.) So what is Gil so worried about? Was this a shift in the nature of the wasps mid-stream, or is there some accepted explanation? Nekokami 12:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC) : Interesting question. I don't remember off-hand who has talked about slaver wasps not infecting Sparks. I will say that Gil and his generation haven't seen much of wasp attacks so it probably hasn't been important to learn the details. (Until, of course, the Baron discovers revenants that , but that's after the event you described). Argadi 12:58, 20 March 2009 (UTC) : I think that Gil can be excused for not knowing (or, perhaps better, not trusting the claim) that sparks can't be infected. And the "Dragon from Mars" story is most emphatically NOT true (it's canonical that Theo tells it, but it's not true; there's a difference). Rancke 15:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC) :: by Tarvek and Vrin of the fact that Snarlantz' wasp would be able to infect a Spark. And I know that Theo made up the Dragon story, but I tend toward the group of theories that there are hints in there of bits of truth, either history or foreshadowing. I agree that Gil might not want to trust the claim that Sparks can't be infected, but he . And Gil has been around-- he seems pretty clear on what slaver wasps are and what they do. Nekokami 16:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC) :::I could be wrong, but I believe that sparks are not susceptible to ordinary slaver wasps is when Anevka tells Selnikov "As a member of the order, you surely know that your Lady's filthy wasps don't work on sparks." (Emphasis mine). The order has been working for (with?) Lucretzia for years. There's no reason why something that's common knowledge to its members would necessarily be something Gil knows too. Rancke 05:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC) ::::One could note that the result of an ordinary wasp infecting a Spark might still be insanity or death, so even if Klaus and Gil did know this, it would be worrisome. However, Gil clearly did fear enslavement, not some other outcome. So this is a genuine mystery, since one would have expected Klaus' wide experience to include incidents where other Sparks had been attacked by slaver wasps. --Quadibloc 06:44, 21 March 2009 (UTC) :::: Good link-- I think that is the first mention. Anevka refers to the "ignorant masses" in a way that suggests that this isn't common knowledge-- I'd missed that earlier. I would assume the Baron knows, but it's clear that he hasn't told Gil a lot of things yet. I don't know why he'd withhold this particular bit of information, but he seems to have reasons for everything he does, so perhaps that will become more apparent later. (I'm still curious as to whether the Profs. Foglio had intended for Sparks to be immune to wasps all along, or decided that after writing the scene with Gil and Agatha, but with the "ignorant masses" comment, I think they're covered either way.) Nekokami 22:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC) :::: I don't know if the Baron does know that wasps can't infect sparks. We know that the Other was gone before the Baron returned, and that he has studied the Other's toys, but we don't know what experience he has had with the Other. Additionally, that's not something the Other would have been broadcasting to her enemies, though it does explain why she destroyed so many spark families, she was eliminating those who could resist her. Kytross 05:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC) : It seems reasonable to me that if the slaver wasps didn't know they couldn't infect sparks (like Gil and Agatha). That Gil, Agatha and even the Baron might not know either at the time of the incident. Also, to a heroic spark it would not really make a difference. If there was trouble they would have to be in the midst of it. : Finally, the precanonical heterodyne Boys were capable of changing reality so that they could not lose. So when Bill and Barry fought the Other and the wasps, reality changing would be a definite possibility. And even if we stay with canon, there are a whole lot of time meddlers in this story. Reality has to be under a constant strain. It may just change from time to time. Rej Maddog 00:46, 4 April 2009 (UTC)